The evolution of outdoor advertising

Leave it to a man named Cowhead to bestow marketing wisdom.

A few days ago, the Tampa-area radio host talked about how digital outdoor billboards are changing the way he promotes his show. He said he can now, from the studio, develop new creative on the fly and upload it for instantaneous rotation in the ever-proliferating fleet of electronic billboards around the city. So if they have monkeys running loose in the studio, he can snap a photo, add a tagline and share it immediately.

The Tampa Bay Rays are smart about using the medium in real time, too. The team shares scores as games are in progress, hoping drivers will be intrigued and tune in.

Essentially, outdoor is another connected screen for us to look at, a river of updating information that marketers need to approach differently. Digital billboards have been with us for awhile. What is more recent, I think, is the ability for marketers to leverage the Internet connectivity of those billboards. Today, outdoor is much more like Twitter and much less like print. At least smart marketers are approaching it that way.

For outdoor, the way messages are planned and implemented changes drastically. Strategy becomes even more important; carefully crafted campaigns less so. A clear understanding of a campaign’s goals and the desired positioning provide guardrails for a series of more nimble, on-the-fly messages. Take Cowhead for example. The overarching strategy is to communicate the outrageous and entertaining nature of his show. The ability to share the outrageous events occurring on his show, in real time, provides the messaging and evidence to support the strategy. Carefully crafted copy become far less important. But those crafting messages on the fly must clearly understand the strategy so they stay within the guardrails and keep the campaign on track.

So again, opportunity evolves for marketers, and the changes are fascinating. Gary Vaynerchuk likes to say that smartphones have destroyed outdoor media. “You think drivers are looking at your billboards?” he asks audiences. They aren’t even looking at the ******* road!” Maybe he's right. But then again, outdoor that looks more like a smartphone screen may be more compelling.